Building an Android Mobile RSS Reader in 30 Minutes - Part 2 (Video)

This is part 2 of the tutorial to build a Slashdot RSS Android Application. The entire source code is available as well as the application.  In part two you will learn the architectural perils of mobile development plus how to mitigate them to save CPU and bandwidth as well as some best practices to satisfy your end users.

The source code for the project is available here: SlashdotRSS.fxp

The Slashdot.apk (Android installer package) is here: SlashdotRSS.apk

The topic chosen was how to read an RSS feed from Slashdot.org and display the list on a mobile device, then retrieve specific RSS items when the user makes a selection.


Building an Android Mobile RSS Reader in 30 Minutes - Part 2 from Technoracle on Vimeo.

Mobile Development with Flash Builder (Tutorial and Source Code)

Today I am releasing a set of two applications, one built using the Flex 4.1 SDK and one built using the Flex 4.5 SDK (Burrito version of Flash Builder using the "Hero" framework).  Although the base application is essentially the same, the differences are astounding in terms of development ease and performance. 

The project itself is a simple project to demonstrate how to read/write to a file system.  The application is named LetMeC (“let me see”).   The screenshot below is of the application built using Flash Builder 4.01 overlaid with the AIR 2.5 SDK.  This one uses the FileSystemDataGrid component and has several helper classes.  The source code for the AIR 2.5 project is available here: 

FileBrowser.fxp (Flash Builder 4.01/AIR 2.5 SDK project - 76 kb)

FileBrowser.apk (Android Package - 1.02 MB)
Installed application size = 1.02 MB (without graphics, icons, splash images etc)

This second screenshot (below) is basically the same application written using the Flash Builder 4.5 Burrito preview.  This application is open and you can use it or install it on your device:

MobileFileBrowser.fxp (Flash Builder 4.5 project - 840 kb)

MobileFileBrowser.apk (Android Package -1.78 MB)
Installed application size = 768 kb (with graphics, icons, splash images etc)

Note that the installed sizes of the applications vary.  The first one is larger even though I never used any graphics for icons, splash screens or other bits.  The Flash Builder 4.5 Burrito application has a larger installer, however on the Google Nexus 1 disk, the installed application is only 768 kb, of which roughly 398 kb is images alone coupled with 230 kb of icons!  The Hero framework rocks! Here is a screenshot.

The differences in development are vast and I am definitely favoring the direction Adobe is running towards with respect to the Hero framework.  Mobile development in Flash Builder 4.5 is much easier.  For starters, there is a notion of "views" and features such as screen orientation are supported.  The first thing you will notice is that the list of components is greatly reduced.  The version of this I built using 4.1 used the component.  This component by itself is very heavy weight (it is still MX or Halo qualified, not Spark).  The scroll bars are difficult to use as the hit area on a touch screen is very small.  Also the orientation is something you have to do manually if you want your application to resize and reorient when the phone is tilted.

One item that works well on PC, Mac, and Linux is AIR’s “openWithDefaultApplication()” method.  No such luck on Android as the architecture uses a notion of “intents”.   It is easy to write code to access the functionality rather than accessing the notion of a "file".  One line of code will open up an SMS, URL, or even phone someone.  As the code samples from James Ward illustrate below:

Last thoughts?  I am now addicted to mobile development!  Adobe Flash Builder 4.5 rocks (even though it is a preview and somewhat "beta").  The most beautiful thing is that I can use 95% of my code for a desktop application too.

Try it for yourself.  Download the Flash Builder 4.5 preview from http://labs.adobe.com

I will post a video of this whole process very shortly on this blog.

Peace, love and may your code compile on the first try!

Some awesome webinars on building multi-screen content

For developers, we want to invite you to a series of webinars on authoring content and code for mobile screens. Yeah - there has been a lot of talk about how you can just "write once, run everywhere" but the devil is in the details. Developers who have been at the cutting edge are preparing to reveal some best practices and tips, tricks you should at least be aware of when authoring for multiple screens to take advantage of new features of Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2. These webinars will run from June 22-24, 2010.

Best practices in optimizing web content for Flash Player 10.1
Tuesday, June 22, 9AM – 10AM Pacific Time - REGISTER

The quickest way to build cross-platform apps with AIR 2
Tuesday, June 22, 1PM – 2PM Pacific Time - REGISTER

Rich Internet App development with Flash Builder 4 for Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2
Wednesday, June 23, 9AM – 10AM Pacific Time - REGISTER

Multi-screen web content development with Flash Pro CS5
Thursday, June 24 9AM – 10AM Pacific Time - REGISTER

Video Tutorial - 3D effects in Flex/AIR in 5 minutes

This is a very focused video tutorial to help developers understand the basics of X, Y, and Z axis rotations of graphical components while programming in Flash Builder 4 (Flex 4 framework) and using AIR.